"Haaah...haaah..." Zayne panted as his mind felt numb from the consecutive spell casting he'd been doing.

"Hey, why don't you take a break? Also, what the heck is up with your MP? Does it not run out? You must've cast that tunneling spell thingy fifty times by now!" Lune grabbed his shoulder with a face filled with worry.

"I'm fine..." Zayne casually brought up the description of his [Demon Spark].

 

 

"Wow, this is definitely a main character's ability..." Luna remarked dryly before pinched Zayne's arm. "You kept 'balancing' vampires, but what the hell is this?!"

"Ow! Can't you see that it's perfectly balanced? Grant doesn't even use the [Ignite] too much. Plus I'm pretty much a magnet for Greater Demons!" Zayne complained.

'Holy shit! Now that I've calmed down, my situation is gradually sinking in. Aren't I in pretty deep shit? Why the hell did I write Dark Fantasy! I should've written a fucking RomCom!'

Zayne squatted down on the ground as he waited for his mana to top up.

"Hm..." Luna sat down too, even though she didn't really want to touch the soil that smelled like sewage. But since her nose would be assaulted no matter what she did, she decided to at least be more comfortable while suffering. After settling into a relatively comfortable sitting position, she nudged her lover who kept massaging his temples. "Hey, teach me some magic words. I couldn't understand them earlier."

"That's a given. Words of Power can only be taught to another through writing. Otherwise, they'd spread pretty easily." Zayne smiled wryly as he began to write down some words on the ground.

In the world of GMAG, when one said a Word of Power out loud, everybody who heard it would just hear unintelligible sounds. Even a master lip-reader would find that a mystical force would stop him from understanding how the Word of Power was pronounced.

Hence, a teacher would have to write it down as well as explain what the spell meant.

In the beginning stages, one needed three things to cast magic. The word, a vision, and some mana — otherwise known as "MP".

[Ki Zo Rath] the Word of Power to conjure lightning, would do nothing if the caster imagined calling forth fire instead.

As for the mana, once the word was uttered with the appropriate vision in mind, the minimum amount of mana would automatically be taken from the caster. The caster can just add more to it if they wished. If the vision is more complicated or improved in some other way, the mana that's taken will also increase.

"There, can you read that?" Zayne asked as he finished writing the Word of Power to conjure light and explained a bit about how to cast magic.

"Yeah, I think I can read it..." Luna squinted her eyes. Although there was no light in the tunnel, Luna and Zayne's races both had perfect night vision. She had a different reason for squinting. "Your handwriting is so ugly."

"Shut up..." He scowled, not having anything to say to defend his penmanship. He cleared his throat and then held out his hand. "I'll demonstrate first."

Within his mind, Zayne imagined a floating orb of light, not unlike a firefly.

<< Ila >>

"So pretty..." Luna smiled as she looked at the glowing wisp of white Zayne held within his palm. She was eager to cast some magic too. "Hm..."

Luna closed her eyes and imagined a similar light manifesting within her palm, except a bit bigger. And there were five of them. One for every power ranger color.

<< Ila >>

"Oh..." Luna felt the strange sensation of something leaving her body as five specks of light appeared on top of her open palm. She smiled in satisfaction. "I did it."

"Yep. It's easy if you know the words." Zayne nodded. "It'll be one of our advantages going forward."

"Aren't we pretty broken for this world? You know so much about it. And all of these supposedly rare words that everybody wants to know are all in your head. Then there's the fact that I'm a vampire. Where's the balance that you seemed to always get a boner for?"

'I don't get boners for balancing stuff! That's a certain game company's thing! They always try to fix shit even though it isn't broken! All in the name of their accursed "Balance"!'

After he finished giving a mental retort, Zayne sighed. "Numbers, Luna. There's just the two of us for now. Like that dog thing? Ten of those would've buried us easily. And they're the weakest demons."

"Damnit. If only Levitation wasn't so... limited." Luna grimaced.

"Intermediate Demons can fly, and so can Greaters. There are even normal human beings that can fly using Martial Arts." Zayne shook his head. "We're only stronger in a skirmishing sense. Once the fights turn large-scale, our individual specs won't matter too much. Rather, standing out will be dangerous, since we'll attract aggro."

"You talk as if we're going to be fighting in a large-scale battle," she quipped.

"Well, hopefully, we don't." He chuckled wryly. His mana was topped up, so he would resume tunneling. "I just wanna live in peace. I don't wanna work~"

'Unlike the protagonist of my novel, I'm not planning to work so hard to save a bunch of people who're going to die anyway. The world can just go ahead and take care of itself. Besides, it's not like I made any threats that could actually destroy the whole world. The demons have their own problems and laws. They'll never fully commit to an invasion of the mortal plane. Especially since they're weaker here, and their Demon Lords can't even step foot outside their home world.'

Although the casualties would increase by billions, that would be no problem of his. Grant went and worked day and night to save the world because he was a good person who cared about the lives of the common folk. But Zayne only cared about two people: Luna and himself — in that order of priority.

Besides, things worked out for Grant because he had the author's backing. He had plot armor. Albeit, Zayne made sure he suffered enough heartache to discourage people from pointing it out.

But what about Zayne and Luna?

Zayne was the author, and he was now inside the story.

He could no longer erase parts of the novel nor could he add something to change the direction of the narrative.

He and Luna were characters now. And Zayne wasn't willing to bet on the off-chance that he'd inherited Grant's plot armor. Luna's life was too valuable to gamble. His life was also somewhat valuable to him, so he'd rather not lose it.

'Good luck, people of Garottia~' was pretty much all he could offer to the people who would inevitably die from the absence of a Hero.

"Hey, why's your face all scrunched up?" Luna leaned sideways, peeking at Zayne's face as he kept on tunneling.

"Nothing. I was just thinking how much of a pain in the ass this is." He grinned wryly, letting the fatigue intentionally seep into his face.

"That's why I told you to just rest!" Luna grabbed Zayne's shoulders as she used her leg to sweep his feet from under him.

"Huh?" Zayne felt his legs leave the ground and the next thing he knew, his head was lying on Luna's lap.

'Wow, I just got MARTIAL ARTS-ed. How'd she do that...?'

"I'm really okay though..." Zayne muttered sheepishly while trying to get up.

"I said rest!" Luna yelled as her amber eyes turned red.

"Yes, sir!" He laid his head back down on Luna's thighs.

"It's ma'am, dumbass." She pinched his nose.

Zayne chuckled as he closed his eyes. "Yes, ma'am."

'This isn't so bad...if it weren't for the smell, that is. Shit, the stench hurts my eyes. Even when they're shut.' Zayne rubbed his cheeks on Luna's legs. It would've been nice if she wasn't wearing these blasted pants.

Chuckling at his own thoughts, Zayne began to drift into sleep.

'Guess I'll take a quick nap...'

 

---

 

"Ngh." Zayne groaned as he woke up. He didn't know how much he slept, but he felt quite refreshed.

"You awake?" Luna tapped Zayne's nose.

"Mm... yeah..." Zayne groggily responded as he tried to shake off the last bit of drowsiness.

"Hey, Zayne," Luna called out softly. "I have a question about this character sheet."

"What is it?"

"Why's my age listed like this?"

Zayne opened his eyes fully. Luna was looking at a semi-transparent screen.

 

 

"Oh, that?" Zayne chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you'd find that strange, huh?"

"Yeah. I remembered you had the same age, right?"

"Yep." Zayne sat up and nodded. "It's simple really. You just put fifteen before the plus zero."

"Fifteen?" Luna's head tilted in confusion. "Why fifteen?"

"Cuz that's the MC's age at the moment. Or rather, that's our age, at the moment. We got trucked into the end of the first arc, after all." He scratched his chin while arranging the thoughts in his head. "Basically, that's how I listed ages in my settings book. It would've been annoying to keep track of everyone's ages if I'd written down the age they were at when they showed up in the story. Especially since GMAG's storyline encompassed decades of Grant's life. So instead, I wrote their ages in relation to my MC's age."

"Oh?" Luna raised an eyebrow, interested.

"Like, if I'm eighteen right now, a twenty-two-year-old character will be listed as having an age of +4. A sixteen-year-old character will be listed as -2. No matter how many years pass in the story, this makes it easier to keep track of their ages. You're +0 since we're the same age."

"Oh~!" Her eyes widened as she clapped her hands. "Wait, that's actually kind of smart. Who or where'd you learn it from?"

"Hm?" Zayne raised an eyebrow. "I just thought of it by myself? I mean, it's a pretty simple mechanic."

"Woooow~ 'a pretty simple mechanic'~ he said!" Luna snickered while repeatedly poking him. "You know? Sometimes I can't figure out if you're smart or stupid."

He couldn't let her get away with that. While pointing a finger at her nose, he grinned. "Huh~? Why don't you take a look in the mirror? Have you forgotten what happened earlier? You completely broke down just cuz of a ring! A ring that we obviously left behind back on earth!"

"Wha—!" Luna couldn't help but recoil after getting attacked with facts. She really must've been out of her mind earlier. "D-dammit... you fucking pipsqueak!"

She stood up, lording her superior height over Zayne with a proud look on her face.

"Dammit..." His forehead wrinkled as he gnashed his teeth.

It was the same situation a few years ago. Zayne was a few centimeters shorter than Luna before he had a growth spurt when he turned seventeen.

His hands tightened into fists as he remembered how much he was teased in the exact same way. At least this time, he was used to her enough to fight back.

Zayne pointed at Luna's barren chest and smirked. He didn't even have to say anything to get the point across.

"Y-you motherfucker..." Luna bit her lip as she cupped her non-existent mounds.

She was a late-bloomer when it came to that area. For some reason, she was completely flat before she turned eighteen!

Zayne arrogantly snorted as he stood up and went back to tunneling, satisfied with the mild emotional damage he'd dealt. He would regain his height in two years but Luna wouldn't get her glorious bust back for three. She wouldn't be able to diss him about anything until she got them back.

'Oh, wait a minute... She'll be flat for three more years? That's not a good thing for me at all!'

As he cast another tunneling spell, he softly groaned in despair. Perhaps he'd won the argument, but he may have lost much more in the end. But the sadness lasted only for a few moments. He quickly regained his usual vigor as he shrugged.

'Meh. At least she has nice pair of thighs and feet.'

In the end, Zayne was a man who appreciated many aspects of womanly beauty.